13 Wherefore having girded up the loins of your mind, being sober, hope perfectly upon the grace that is being brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ,
Be sober, vigilant, because your opponent the devil, as a roaring lion, doth walk about, seeking whom he may swallow up,
And of all things the end hath come nigh; be sober-minded, then, and watch unto the prayers,
For the saving grace of God was manifested to all men, teaching us, that denying the impiety and the worldly desires, soberly and righteously and piously we may live in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about in truth, and having put on the breastplate of the righteousness,
so also the Christ, once having been offered to bear the sins of many, a second time, apart from a sin-offering, shall appear, to those waiting for him -- to salvation!
`According to these things it shall be, in the day the Son of Man is revealed;
and the Lord God sanctify in your hearts. And `be' ready always for defence to every one who is asking of you an account concerning the hope that `is' in you, with meekness and fear;
Blessed `is' the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to the abundance of His kindness did beget us again to a living hope, through the rising again of Jesus Christ out of the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and unfading, reserved in the heavens for you, who, in the power of God are being guarded, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, in which ye are glad, a little now, if it be necessary, being made to sorrow in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith -- much more precious than of gold that is perishing, and through fire being approved -- may be found to praise, and honour, and glory, in the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom, not having seen, ye love, in whom, now not seeing and believing, ye are glad with joy unspeakable and glorified, receiving the end of your faith -- salvation of souls;
which we have, as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and entering into that within the vail,
and Christ, as a Son over his house, whose house are we, if the boldness and the rejoicing of the hope unto the end we hold fast.
`And thus ye do eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye have eaten it in haste; it is Jehovah's passover,
and to you who are troubled -- rest with us in the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with messengers of his power,
so, then, we may not sleep as also the others, but watch and be sober, for those sleeping, by night do sleep, and those making themselves drunk, by night are drunken, and we, being of the day -- let us be sober, putting on a breastplate of faith and love, and an helmet -- a hope of salvation,
and now there doth remain faith, hope, love -- these three; and the greatest of these `is' love.
so that ye are not behind in any gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
for, as many things as were written before, for our instruction were written before, that through the endurance, and the exhortation of the Writings, we might have the hope. And may the God of the endurance, and of the exhortation, give to you to have the same mind toward one another, according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord -- with one mouth -- ye may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; wherefore receive ye one another, according as also the Christ did receive us, to the glory of God. And I say Jesus Christ to have become a ministrant of circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers, and the nations for kindness to glorify God, according as it hath been written, `Because of this I will confess to Thee among nations, and to Thy name I will sing praise,' and again it saith, `Rejoice ye nations, with His people;' and again, `Praise the Lord, all ye nations; and laud Him, all ye peoples;' and again, Isaiah saith, `There shall be the root of Jesse, and he who is rising to rule nations -- upon him shall nations hope;' and the God of the hope shall fill you with all joy and peace in the believing, for your abounding in the hope in power of the Holy Spirit.
as in day-time, let us walk becomingly; not in revellings and drunkennesses, not in chamberings and lasciviousnesses, not in strife and emulation;
`And take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts may be weighed down with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and anxieties of life, and suddenly that day may come on you, for as a snare it shall come on all those dwelling on the face of all the land,
`And thou, thou dost gird up thy loins, and hast arisen, and spoken unto them all that I command thee: be not affrighted because of them, lest I affright thee before them.
And righteousness hath been the girdle of his loins, And faithfulness -- the girdle of his reins.
Gird, I pray thee, as a man, thy loins, And I ask thee, and cause thou Me to know.
And he saith to Gehazi, `Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thy hand, and go; when thou dost meet a man, thou dost not salute him; and when a man doth salute thee, thou dost not answer him; and thou hast laid my staff on the face of the youth.'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Peter 1
Commentary on 1 Peter 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The First Epistle General of Peter
Chapter 1
The apostle describes the persons to whom he writes, and salutes them (v. 1, 2), blesses God for their regeneration to a lively hope of eternal salvation (v. 3-5), in the hope of this salvation he shows they had great cause of rejoicing, though for a little while they were in heaviness and affliction, for the trial of their faith, which would produce joy unspeakable and full of glory (v. 6-9). This is that salvation which the ancient prophets foretold and the angels desire to look into (v. 10-12). He exhorts them to sobriety and holiness, which he presses from the consideration of the blood of Jesus, the invaluable price of man's redemption (v. 13-21), and to brotherly love, from the consideration of their regeneration, and the excellency of their spiritual state (v. 22-25).
1Pe 1:1-2
In this inscription we have three parts:-
1Pe 1:3-5
We come now to the body of the epistle, which begins with,
1Pe 1:6-9
The first word, wherein, refers to the apostle's foregoing discourse about the excellency of their present state, and their grand expectations for the future. "In this condition you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, or a little while, if need be, you are made sorrowful through manifold temptations,' v. 6.
1Pe 1:10-12
The apostle having described the persons to whom he wrote, and declared to them the excellent advantages they were under, goes on to show them what warrant he had for what he had delivered; and because they were Jews, and had a profound veneration for the Old Testament, he produces the authority of the prophets to convince them that the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ was no new doctrine, but the same which the old prophets did enquire and search diligently into. Note,
You have here three sorts of students, or enquirers into the great affair of man's salvation by Jesus Christ:-
1Pe 1:13-23
Here the apostle begins his exhortations to those whose glorious state he had before described, thereby instructing us that Christianity is a doctrine according to godliness, designed to make us not only wiser, but better.
1Pe 1:24-25
The apostle having given an account of the excellency of the renewed spiritual man as born again, not of corruptible but incorruptible seed, he now sets before us the vanity of the natural man, taking him with all his ornaments and advantages about him: For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; and nothing can make him a solid substantial being, but the being born again of the incorruptible seed, the word of God, which will transform him into a most excellent creature, whose glory will not fade like a flower, but shine like an angel; and this word is daily set before you in the preaching of the gospel. Learn,